Advancement even faster?

[Mercule]

I have mixed emotions on this.

I have always preferred the slower advancement in 1E, where a character played for 20+ hours in a given week (ah, summertime when you're 14) could expect to spend months gaining one or two levels.

On the other hand, with this last session, I've started doubling the xp awards to my players. I've been running a game for almost two years with the intent of going from level 1 to level 30. The PCs are 11th and I'm finding it rather tedious, as I've had a pretty good idea of the flow (not railroading, but predicting) since the beginning.

I guess that means that my game is advancing at roughly the same absolute pace as when I played 1E. I never expected to play beyond 10th level or so in 1E, though.

I can adjust my rate of advancement, so it won't be that bad.

Still, I wonder if 3e/4e trying to do in 20/30 levels what used to be done in 10 is part of the problem with certain spells and this "math" thing we keep hearing about. CLW wasn't a bad high-level spell in 1E, when you were looking at retiring at 10th level and 100 hps. It downright sucks at 20th level in 3e, when you have 200+ hps. Both characters may, theoretically, be the same power, but the spell hasn't scaled, so the cleric has to cast more to get less.

I don't know, really. Just making rambling conjectures. Hopefully, though, that whole scaling issue is why they're releveling spells and keep talking about math.

If levels 1-30 in 4E feel a lot like levels 1-10 in 1E, just better balanced and with three "micro-levels" in 4E to what was a single level in 1E, I'd be fine with it. In Hero, WoD, etc. you generally get a small tweak every two to three sessions. It might be to only one skill or power, but it's there. It isn't as significant as a D&D level has traditionally been, and it doesn't add a "Ding!!!" feel. If 4E has that sort of gentle slope, it'd be peachy.

 

[Tortoise]

I'm of mixed feelings on the speed of advancement too.

My main complaint is that I'm trying to reduce the amount of prep time so I can jump in and run the game. I like a slower advancement, no problem, I simply slow the XP rate. This becomes a problem when using published adventures since it means I now have to rewrite some of it to account for characters not advancing as quickly. Ergo, I am no longer able to take advantage of less prep time.

I would like the advancement slowed from what it is in 3e, not quickened. If someone wants quickened, let them play a video game so they can grab their power-ups right on the screen ... "look! we completed the adventure path in 3 days!"

 

[Celebrim]

My main complaint is that I'm trying to reduce the amount of prep time so I can jump in and run the game. I like a slower advancement, no problem, I simply slow the XP rate. This becomes a problem when using published adventures since it means I now have to rewrite some of it to account for characters not advancing as quickly. Ergo, I am no longer able to take advantage of less prep time.

QFT.

 

[Greg K]

Faster leveling? 1e was too slow, but 3e is already too fast, imo. I'll chalk it up to just one of many moves by the design team that I do not like.

 

[Nebulous]

My main complaint is that I'm trying to reduce the amount of prep time so I can jump in and run the game. I like a slower advancement, no problem, I simply slow the XP rate. This becomes a problem when using published adventures since it means I now have to rewrite some of it to account for characters not advancing as quickly. Ergo, I am no longer able to take advantage of less prep time.

Hmm...you have a good point here. I very much want to run Red Hand of Doom, but i have no idea how this would convert to 4th edition. It would be hard enough revising the stats, and even harder guessing what levels should roughly equal each other between editions.

 

[psionotic]

I've always wanted to just tell my players "OK, you all level!" when appropriate, but the 3.x system of magic item creation made it a bit of a bother (because we almost always have characters making things.) Since the new (4e) creation system is not based on balanced XP costs, I will do this if I think the default progression is too fast or too slow for my group...

 

[shadow]

I prefer quicker leveling. I played in several 2e games and never saw a character rise above 3rd level naturally. Character advancement was so painfully slow that the whole group would get bored with their characters before we got anywhere. BTW, remember this was low levels in 2e - meaning random starting hitpoints, no wizard (er.. mage) bonus spells, and relatively few interesting powers. No wonder why we almost gave up on D&D.

Another reason I prefer faster advancement is something called real life intruding. Now that I'm out of school and have a job, I can't play for hours every weekend. I only game about once a month. Some people like games where it takes 6 or 7 sessions to gain a level, but that works out to over half a year for me.

 

[BryonD]

The way I read you don't really advance any faster, they just put in more markers along the same basic path and spaced them closer together.

 

[Celebrim]

Hmm...you have a good point here. I very much want to run Red Hand of Doom, but i have no idea how this would convert to 4th edition. It would be hard enough revising the stats, and even harder guessing what levels should roughly equal each other between editions.

I have found some modules to be absolutely unconvertable between editions do to differences not only in the rates of leveling but in rates of relative and absolute power increase.

For example, I set out to convert the Desert of Desolation series. Things went mostly well through the first module, but then I turned my attention to the second one. The problem wasn't so much that a different number of levels might be gained (1st edition published modules which were part of a series were also overstuffed with treasure to ensure rapid leveling) between the two editions, but what those levels meant. Two levels of power in the mid to high levels of D&D were significant. A 9th level character could be expected to handle near epic challenges. So right there at the end of the second module, I had to deal with straight up fight with the Efreeti that was going to be at least 8 CR higher than the party plus his minions. It was winnable through the application of a mcguffin, but in the 1st edition module the mcguffin helped, but the difference between the fight with and without the mcguffin was much smaller in 1st edition than 3rd edition. In 3rd edition, the encounter turned into, "Show up without the mcguffin: TPK." So it turned out to be harder than I thought it would be to convert. In some cases, the actual spirit of the orginal module was impossible to capture.

In another thread they talk about how this will hardly feels like a new edition. I'd like to add to my disent from that, that converting between previous additions will be a cake walk compared to the difficultly of porting adventures from earlier editions to 4th edition.

 

[Celebrim]

The way I read you don't really advance any faster, they just put in more markers along the same basic path and spaced them closer together.

I read that to, but it doesn't change the fact that the interuption of play to level up still occurs more often.

Maybe they should have 60 levels and just space them even closer together?